a very sharp, serrated-blade breadknife, and try to make the cut in one or no more than two draws of the blade. I've been using a Lamonsharp 10" (available from King Arthur), but recently bought a Forschner Victorinox 10" breadknife--they call it a "Wavy Blade". (available through Amazon) It, at least for now, is the sharpest breadknife I've ever owned, and will use it in the future.

I chill pinwheel cookie doughs, as suggested above, but I cut yeasted doughs, i.e., sticky buns, cinnommon at room temperature, with no problems. I try not to press down, letting just the weight of the blade do the work.

I took your recommendation and picked up one of those Victorinox wavy blade 10" bread knives from Amazon. Great! It's nice and substantial so I can direct the cut better than with a lighter weight knife that tended to go off on it's own course, and it's so sharp that I don't have to press hard and compress the loaf when I cut. Where I used to have to saw through the bottom crust, now I have to stop to not be cutting through the cutting board because I've already gotten through the bottom crust. I'm very pleased. Thanks!

If you try dental floss, gently slide it under the rolled dough, lift up and criss-cross the ends then pull outward; advance the floss to the next place you want to cut & repeat, etc. this works for me - until you hit a nice big raisin :-)

I use dental floss to cut cinnamon buns and pinwheels. Even the sharpest knife just squashes them. Place a strand of floss under the rolled dough; cross the ends over each other and pull. The floss cuts through neatly and cleanly.

Use unwaxed unflavoured dental floss. Here are photos I took of cheese pinwheels (maybe a little overstuffed with cheese). See how the round holds its shape after being cut.

Thread works too but is not so easy to keep track of because it is so thin.

The cheese pinwheels are simply filled with grated medium cheddar. And the dough is actually baking powder biscuit dough.

Although I've used the floss method on cinnamon buns, I don't think I've ever taken a photo of cutting our cinnamon buns made in a similar manner. And the last time I cut cinnamon bun dough rolls, I see that I used the dough scraper to cut each bun. I don't remember that it DIDN'T work but I do remember there were major problems that day with very very slack dough. My gut feeling is that the floss cutting method works best.

As for what to do about raisins, as I recall, I think I jammed raisins into the spirals afterward.

For a long time I used floss and it worked well. But lately I have gone to using a large pastry knife. The same kinife I use for cutting bread dough, when scaling a batch. It is faster than the floss and works well. One thing that helps is to wet it with cold water.

If using floss be careful about leaving it lay on your bench and get rolled in to the next batch of rolls -- no one likes to find dental floss when eating a roll for breakfast. :-)

For a long time I used floss and it worked well. But lately I have gone to using a large pastry knife. The same knife I use for cutting bread dough, when scaling a batch. It is faster than the floss and works well. One thing that helps is to wet it with cold water.

If the dough is soft enough, most pros use a metal bench scraper. This isn't as sharp as a knife, and you can certainly use a knife if you like, but bakery owners don't want deep scars in their wooden baker's bench.

There's a little "smushing", but if you cut down quickly with no sawing motion, this can be minimized. Locate the blade of the bench scraper where you want to cut, push down with no hesitation, and then draw the scraper back toward where you are standing. Just leave the slices where they lay as you go.

Then you take what looks like an eliptical shape and finesse it a bit back into a round just as you tray them. And cut all your slices before finessing them back into rounds and traying them -- you save a bit of time that way.

I'll have to try that this weekend, thanks Dan! Makes sense that after 'helping' them back towards round, final proof, and good oven spring should produce a product no one would question. My last 'fight' with string cutting put cinnamon rolls on the bottom of my list, because my time and hassle ratio is a definite deciding factor. I hope this brings them back up to the short list. : )

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